The classic second album from New Order — 1983’s Power, Corruption & Lies — was released exactly 28 years ago today, and to commemorate that release, here’s an equally classic five-song performance by the band filmed 18 months later, on Aug. 25, 1984, in the BBC Basement Studio.
Posted by YouTube user adz1962, this vintage New Order performance is notable for a number of reasons, including the fact that it provides visual evidence that drummer Stephen Morris is, in fact, a human metronome, plus we learn that frontman Bernard Sumner once enjoyed wearing very short shorts (tennis, anyone?).
The five-song set includes “Age of Consent” and “Blue Monday,” two highlights off Power, Corruption & Lies (for those of us with original U.S. pressings, anyway); 1982 single “Temptation”; “In a Lonely Place,” the B-side to the band’s debut single “Ceremony”; and “Sooner Than You Think,” which would appear on 1985’s Low-Life.
Watch the whole set above, or check out individual tracks at Slicing Up Video.
See setlist for New Order’s 1984 BBC performance after the jump…
Setlist: New Order, BBC Basement Studio, 8/25/84
1. “Sooner Than You Think”
2. “Age of Consent”
3. “Blue Monday”
4. “In a Lonely Place”
5. “Temptation”
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I still remember breaking the “code” that was on this album. I think they had the color blocks on the upper corner of several of their albums which made me curious enough to figure it out way back when ;-) Classic album too!
You forget just how great this albumn was. I will have to get it out and give it a spin.
During the mid-eighties there was a BBC Radio One magazine show imaginitively titled SATURDAY LIVE. It was hosted by Richard Skinner and Andy Baton-Foster. Many years later RS is on XFM and ABF is ..one of those responsible for bringing us Top Gear. Moving right along…
Saturday Live had regular live sessions and after one particular interview with Rob Gretton, Skinner asked on air if New Order would come in and do one. Gretton hemmed and ermmed and said that that would probably be one the group would have to vote on.
A couple of months later BBC2 and BBC Radio staged a joint event called something along the lines of MUSIC DAY. Being a Saturday Skinner very joyfully announced on SL that New order were doing a live session for them which would be simulcast on BBC2 TV.
It later transpired that New Order had raced across the country from a previous gig to make it to the studios in London with not much time to prepare. Exhaused from the previous days events and the perilous journey they were further stressed to find that the set list they’d planned on wasn’t doable because half their and equipment – in particular the sequencers – was playing up. So they came up with one they could do with what they had working pretty much on the spot.
You wouldn’t have noticed from the broadcast. I sat entranced.
Taped it on my dreadful 1980s boombox too. Only to find after broadcast that I’d left the pause button down throughout. (TWAT!) A kind friend got me a bootleg. Was many years before I got the digital copies of same.
They all got fat and became miserable, disappointing gits but fuckinghell, they were grand then, untouchable.